Are the cruise lines listening to their customers about tipping?
That’s what we were left wondering this weekend after it was announced that Celebrity Cruises will no longer require guests to pre-pay gratuities when booking for Select Dining on-board their ships.
Celebrity Select Dining is what’s known as Freedom Dining by other cruise lines. Whilst you still dine in the main dining room you can vary the time you dine at and your table size each night depending on what you fancy.
In the past, customers have had to pre-pay all of their gratuities in advance if they want to select what time they eat (and these are between $11-$15 per person per day depending on their chosen room).
Many of our customers had complained in the past that they do not wish to pre-pay gratuities as they liked to pay them on-board if they deem the service good enough.
If select dining was the only option available to them at the time of booking they’d have no choice but to pre-pay gratuities with no say in the matter.
However, Celebrity Cruises have now said: “Gratuities will no longer automatically be added to bookings with Celebrity Select Dining. Similar to bookings with Traditional Dining, pre-paid gratuities can still be added to bookings if the guest desires, but they will no longer be required as they have been in the past.”
“This change is effective for all new bookings made for any open deployment.”
The news comes just a few days after we released the findings from our Cruise Community Awards and 50% of cruisers said they resent the way that cruise lines take away your right to tip or not. (Which you can read more about here!)
What do you think of the news?
Let us know in the comments below!
